Burrowing Behaviour
Explore how burrowing helps animals survive by providing shelter, protection and a stable environment. Understand how this behavioural adaptation supports safety, temperature control and access to resources.
Benefits of Burrowing
Wombats dig burrows and there are lots of other animals that dig burrows as a behavioural adaptation. There are many advantages to living in a burrow as a way of surviving in different environments, including:
- Hiding from predators
- Finding food underground
- Protection from hot or cold weather
- Protection from bushfires
Platypus burrows
[Image: Platypus swimming in river. Credit: Ken Stepnell/DCCEEW 107703]
Platypuses dig burrows to live in and to raise their babies.
A platypus burrow:
- Is located near water
- Provides a place to sleep
- Is cool in summer and warm in winter
- Can be a nesting burrow for female platypuses to raise pugs (baby platypuses)
A lot of animals live in burrows as a way of having a safe place to live that is cool in summer and warm in winter. By digging down into the ground, the animal’s house is surrounded by dirt which acts as an ‘insulator’. An insulator is a material that slows down the movement of heat energy.
If the weather is hot above ground, the temperature will stay cooler underground. If the weather is cold above ground, the body heat of a mammal will help keep its burrow cosy and warm.
Some humans have adapted to living underground too. The South Australian town of Coober Pedy is famous for its underground homes which are called ‘dugouts’. About half of the people in Coober Pedy live in dugouts to enjoy the cool underground temperatures on hot summer days and the warmer underground temperatures in the cool desert nights.
[Image: Underground home in Coober Pedy, South Australia. Wikimedia Creative Commons]
Activities
Design a fair test to measure the temperature in a burrow
Working individually or in pairs, design how a thermometer can be used to test the temperature inside and outside a pretend animal burrow.
1. Write down lists of ideas for the following:
- How and where to dig a pretend animal burrow, including the tools needed and the size and shape of the burrow
- How to use a thermometer to measure the temperature inside and outside the pretend burrow
- The best times of the day to conduct the experiment
- What will stay the same in the experiment and what variables can be changed for this to be a fair test
2. As a whole class, share ideas about the investigation and decide on:
- Materials needed
- Method
- How the results will be recorded
- Assigning of tasks to students
- How the results will be reported
Conduct a fair test to measure the temperature inside and outside a pretend animal burrow
Materials (depending on the method developed in the last activity): thermometer(s), tools for digging a pretend burrow, ruler or tape measure for measuring the depth of the burrow
1. Before conducting the experiment, decide on a hypothesis for the expected results. The hypothesis may depend on the design of your experiment and on the weather conditions in your location.
For example:
Hypothesis A – The temperature is cooler inside a burrow than outside the burrow.
OR
Hypothesis B – The temperature is warmer inside a burrow than outside the burrow.
2. Follow the method from the last activity to measure the temperature inside and outside a pretend burrow.
3. Discuss the results as a whole class:
- Was your hypothesis correct?
- Is there any way to improve the experiment?
- Would the results be different if parts of the method were changed? For example, if the burrow was deeper.
Image 1: Wombat burrow. Source: Centennial Parklands
Image 2: Platypus swimming in river. Platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus egg laying mammal. Image credit: Ken Stepnell/DCCEEW
107703. Source: https://images.environment.nsw.gov.au/
Image 3: Underground home in Coober Pedy, South Australia. Creative Commons license, Wikimedia Commons. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coober_Pedy_underground_house.jpg
